When the Hectre team got the call asking if Spectre could size citrus, as well as apples, the team jumped at the chance to extend Spectre’s capabilities.

The Hectre R&D team, led by Spectre extraordinaire Luke Butters, hit the road and headed to Gisborne, New Zealand’s most prolific citrus growing region. There the team met with some of New Zealand’s most experienced citrus experts – the team at First Fresh NZ – and got to work collecting image data for oranges, lemons, mandarins and tangelos.

A bin full of glorious oranges!

A top down image of a bin full of juicy oranges.

In less than two months, orange detection optimisation, ground truthing and grader comparisons for accuracy were complete, and Spectre for Citrus was born, cementing a valued relationship between Hectre and First Fresh NZ.

Spectre in the field!

The Hectre team collecting orange bin images in the field at Gisborne.

First Fresh is New Zealand’s largest citrus supplier to the domestic market, holding an enviable market share through the delivery of delicious produce and supporting distributors with cut through brands. The quality of produce supplied by their growers has seen First Fresh NZ build export relationships in a wide range of countries and every day, somewhere in Japan, the UK, the US, Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada, or Australia, someone is enjoying a little slice of Gisborne New Zealand. 

 

Learn more about First Fresh NZ

Box of juicy First Fresh NZ oranges

With the ability to serve up accurate size distribution data within seconds of capturing an image on an iPad or iPhone, Spectre is being used in the field and in pack houses and fruit warehouses.

 

Now that we’ve got the juice on oranges, the Spectre team are working on lemons and mandarins, with limes following. Lemons and other elongated citrus types, require a more complex approach and the team have already identified further steps to account for their non-round shape.

 

Worldwide, more than 17 million tonnes of lemon are produced every year, so we’re excited to be stepping in to the yellow!

lemon bin

Like Hectre, the team at First Fresh NZ value relationships – it’s what takes a business arrangement from mediocre to marvelous – and we’re thrilled to have First Fresh NZ as our first citrus customer. Welcome!

 

If you’d like to book a Spectre demo, or discuss how Spectre might benefit your business, we’d love to hear from you.

Let’s talk

Si desea saber cómo las galardonadas tecnologías frutícolas de Hectre pueden respaldar el éxito de su negocio, conéctese con nosotros.